I Desire Not the Tears of a Goddess
is the sixth episode of the 1979 Cyborg 009 anime series. Plot Summary Gold is disappearing all over the world and signs point to the Gods being behind it. The 00 Cyborgs head to a mining town in South Africa to discover the cause of the strange thefts.. a warped version of Freyja, the Norse Goddess of Love! Recap In London, England on a very foggy night, a gold heist is being pulled at the Bank of England by a quartet of thieves. They successfully steal the gold out of the bank vault and use the sewer system that served as the entry way into the bank to transport the gold to their getaway truck. As they load their ill gotten goods into the truck and prepare to leave, the getaway driver hears a strange noise followed by a voice. The voice proclaims that she is the goddess Freya and she will reclaim "her tears", the "tears of avarice" that she implanted into mankind. The truck's cargo doors suddenly open on their own and the gold in the truck begins to float away and glow white hot. When one of the thieves tries to reclaim a bar of gold, the glowing energy surrounding it surges though his body and kills him instantly, leaving only a charred corpse clutching the gold bar in a tight death grip. The rest of the gold ascends into the heavens as the remaining thieves look on in shock, fear and confusion. At Gilmore Labs in Japan, reports of the robbery and the strange occurrence are discussed among Gilmore and the 00 Cyborgs. The male Cyborgs are confused as to why beings as powerful the Nose Gods would want gold. 003 and Gilmore explain that in Norse mythology, there was a goddess named Freya who gave humanity its greed by searching for her lost love and the tears of sorrow she shed turned into gold as she wandered the Earth searching for him. Thus, Freya is possibly reclaiming her "tears" to purge humanity of its greed. 001 and Gilmore suggest the team head to the Transvaal Province in South Africa, where the richest deposits of the world's gold ore are, as that would be the most likely target for the Gods. The team travels to South Africa in the Dolphin II, only to find that the town they arrive in is completely deserted and almost seems like a ghost town. The team hears screaming and sees a woman fleeing from a trio of men chasing her. The young woman, named Phenos, trips as she runs and the three men order her to surrender her gold necklace. Phenos refuses as it is special to her, so the largest of the trio tries to choke her to death for "defying God" to take the necklace off her. 007 throws a rock at the assailant which knocks him off Phenos. Phenos runs behind them as 003 comforts her. The trio demand to know who the nine strangers are, with 007 simply saying they are travelers. The attackers tell them to mind their own business, but 009 says that when someone is in trouble, they will help them no matter what. The trio get more aggressive as they say "God" will punish them with death if they do not take the necklace to God as an offering. Phenos refuses as the necklace was a gift from her lover Ozul, a miner who refuses the will of the Gods and continues to mine for gold despite the decree of the Gods to surrender all the gold from the mining town to them. If they do not give all the gold to the gods, the town will be burned down. Phenos says she does not believe in such a cruel god nor would have any faith in such a thing. 002 states to the trio that it is an individual's choice whether to believe or have faith in a deity or not, such things should not be forced onto someone. This angers the trio further as they see them as blasphemers, preparing to attack them. 005 offers to deal with the three, with 007 giving a smile as he faces them. 005 simply picks up the rock that 007 threw, grips it in his hand and crushes it into powder. This scares the trio and they run away, though they promise to return. Phenos then thanks the 00 Cyborgs and introduces herself. Phenos takes the 00 Cyborgs to Ozul's mine where he works and she happily greets her lover and tells him about the kind strangers who helped her. Ozul is less than welcoming as he is suspicious of the 00 Cyborgs and tells them outsiders are not welcome and worries about Phenos telling her she should not have come to the mine. Phenos tries to plead to her lover to leave the mine so he can be safe. Ozul explains thinks that with most of the miners gone, he can claim the deposits of gold for himself so he and Phenos can live in comfort and happiness. Phenos says she can live happily with him without gold or wealth, but Ozul gets into a fit of rage and pushes Phenos to the ground. 009 calls the miners ignorant for defying a powerful threat such as a god. Ozul refuses to call the cruel force that has burned towns, killed people and stolen thier gold and jobs actual gods, they are demons. 002 says it is madness to stay when the "Gods" could kill them. Ozul doesn't care as this is a mining town and there is work to be done, the gold rightfully belongs to the town and no one can steal take that away from them. He insists that the 00 Cyborgs leave and take Phenos with them. Phenos pleads to her lover and shows the necklace he gave her for her birthday, a symbol of thier undying love for each other. She cries and says this is all the gold she needs in the world, her mother is dead from the previous attacks by the gods and she cannot bear the thought of losing Ozul too. Phenos hugs Ozul, but he moves her aside and goes back to work. Ozul once again asks the group to leave as the god left a message that she will appear somewhere in the town later on tonight. He coldly shouts at them to leave as they are just getting in the way, causing a heartbroken Phenos to cry and run off. 009 and 002 are angered by Ozul's behavior, only to hear Phenos scream outside and race outside the cavern to see what is the matter. A blinding light appears and Freya's voice demands the miners surrender the all gold over to her. Ozul refuses and a streak of fire falls from the sky, forming into a flaming cat beast that attacks the 00 Cyborgs and chases after Ozul and Phenos. 009 tries to defend the couple by using his Acceleration to get in front to the creature and fire his Super Gun, but it has no effect on the fire cat as it leaps toward the pair. Phenos pushes Ozul to the ground and uses herself as a shield to protect Ozul from the fire cat's claws. But seeing the lovers comfort each other in the face of certain death causes the fire cat to oddly hesitate, calm down and then leave the two and head back to where it came from. In a jungle fortress, the cat is being whipped as punishment by a blue skinned woman in chain mail armor with wings, revealed to be Freya. Odin says the cat represents her heart and seeing two lovers care for each other so strongly as to protect the life of one through sacrifice triggered her soul's compassion, given that Freya was once the Goddess of Love. He punished her for her mistake of creating gold with her tears by giving her hawk wings that changed her into the Goddess of War and she will remain as such. He orders her to discard her notions of love and kill those who defy the gods and take the gold from the town. Freya complies and says she will not fail the father of the gods next time. The next morning, 009 and the 00 Cyborgs are standing on a cliff wondering why the fire cat withdrew instead of attacking and that something is wrong with Freya as she is the Goddess of Love and her actions do not reflect that. Storm clouds roll in and a blinding light envelops the land. 009 orders the team to get to the mines quickly. Freya is on a fire cat pulled chariot, dragging Ozul across the ground behind her with her whip, laughing maniacally. Phenos pleads for Freya to stop and for the miners to help her lover, but the other miners are too afraid to even react. Freya decrees that if they wish to save Ozul, they must kill the outsiders, pointing at the 00 Cyborgs racing toward them in the distance. She summons a rainbow bridge and takes Ozul with her into the sky. The storm clouds part and vanish and the miners turn into an angry mob who attempt to kill the 00 Cyborgs by grabbing their guns from a shed. 009 pleads for them not to be deceived by the evil Freya's trickery, but the miners think that they must obey "god". 008 proposes that they disable the miners by fighting them, but 009 refuses as they are innocent people who are just scared. Phenos blocks the miners from getting a clear shot as they take aim, telling them that if they wish to shoot, shoot her instead as Ozul would not want others to suffer for his actions. 009 thanks Phenos for her kindness and promises to do everything he can to save him. 003 scans the area for any alterations or energy signatures with her super senses, she detects an old castle 20 kilometers away from their current position. The 00 Cyborgs traverse through the jungle with Phenos and then storm the castle. When they burst in, they find a beautiful field of flowers and fall through a trap door to a underground chamber. A fire cat appears and attacks 005, but he knocks it back with a punch. 009 then fights it using his Acceleration and injures it with a direct hit from his Super Gun's beam, with 002 dealing the finishing blow. Freya appears and is perplexed by humans whose power rivals that of the gods, demanding to know who they are. 007 shouts that they are not gods as they are cruel and hurt humans. Freya silences him and shows Ozul badly injured as an example of what happens to those who defy the gods. Phenos rushes to her lover and Freya sees her gold necklace, wanting to punish her for possessing gold. She uses her powers to manipulate Phenos's necklace as a means to strangle the poor woman to death. Phenos crawls toward Ozul to check on him despite her life waning by being strangled. 009, enraged at Freya's cruelty, opens fire on her and sets her wings ablaze with his laser fire. Phenos reaches her hand out to Ozul and calls out to him, with Ozul waking up horrified to see the love of his life draw her last breath. Freya is engulfed in flames and screams in agony and her form body is purified by the flames from the wings being destroyed as she transforms back into the Goddess of Love. Freya wakes up and sees Ozul crawl toward his dead lover, crying as he cradles her lifeless body. Freya is horrified at what she has done, as a goddess of love has taken love away from two people, begging for forgiveness. She staggers to try and leave, but Odin traps her in a beam of light and takes her away screaming in torment. As the fortress fades away, the gold stolen from around the world appears in front of the 00 Cyborgs. Ozul cries and discards Phenos's necklace, lamenting that more than gold or that necklace, he wanted her to live so he could hold her in his arms once more. An enraged 009 believes that the tears of a god are not what man desires as the tears of humans are far more beautiful, shooting a pile of gold in frustration as he vowed that he and the 00 cyborgs will stop the Gods no matter how powerful they are. Characters The 00 Cyborgs * Ivan Whisky (001) * Jet Link (002) * Francoise Arnoul (003) * Albert Heinrich (004) * Geronimo, Jr. (005) * Chang Changku (006) * Great Britain (007) * Pyunma (008) * Joe Shimamura (009) Allies Dr. Isaac Gilmore Enemies *Freyja Notes *The Transvaal Province was a former region of South Africa that ceased to exist in 1994, as its areas were divided up into four Provinces: Limpopo, Gauteng, Mpumalanga and North-West. Mining was one of its strongest points of trade, with rich deposits of gold and uranium being its main export. The region despite changes in name, is also rich in deposits of other minerals and precious resources such as platinum and diamonds. *The rainbow Freya summons to ride up into the clouds is a reference to the Bifröst Bridge of Norse mythology. Video Release This episode was released on Disc One of the Cyborg 009 1979 Collection Blu-Ray Vol. 1 set in Japan on November 11, 2015.http://shop.toei-video.co.jp/products/detail.php?product_id=15803 Toei Video Amazon Japan Category:Cyborg 009 (1979) Category:1979 Episodes